Monday, October 7, 2013

Atlantis, Season 1, Episode 2: A Girl By Any Other Name

In the thick forest, in the middle of the night a woman
runs from a creature that growls and, presumably, chases her. Until she trips
over a log and cowers. C’mon woman, get up, grab the log and poke the beast at
least! It’s only when she slowly, shakily, pulls herself to her feet that the
hairy goblin thing appears and growls at her

In the city, Jason and his friends have been hired to
guard a merchant’s shipment of frankincense, something Jason hates because he’s
bored but the, drunken, Hercules points out if you’re bored at work, you’re
being paid to do nothing (a special bonus if you’re guarding something)

Jason strops his way to the Oracle to have a little
temper tantrum at the vague and cryptic Oracle being, well, vague and cryptic.
There follows… more vague and cryptic stuff. When he complains about being lost
and out of place in Atlantis she rambles about Destiny and apparently the
people who want to kill him.

Well, that was enlightening. She could have at least
thrown in next week’s lottery numbers.

To more mundane problems – the drunken, useless clown,
Hercules fell asleep while on guard and the frankincense was stolen. The merchant
will not be pleased – Pythagoras certainly isn’t. But dealing with that waits
while an old man recruits them to find his daughter, Demetrea, who came to the
city looking for work (and found it in the palace) and is now missing. He wants
those who slew the Minotaur to help her – Hercules is at first eager then backs
out when he realises the old man doesn’t have much money to pay them but Jason
offers to help.

A servant, Korrina, sneaks Jason into the palace (which
is forbidden) and he runs into Ariadne – who, of course, turns a blind eye. Jason
talks to one of the cooks who tells him Demetrea disappeared while fetching
herbs – no-one looked for her because servants have little value and the servants
themselves are so busy. Still, with poking from Korrina, she agrees to show
Jason where Demetrea would have gathered herbs.

Jason is surprised at how far away the herbs are (me too,
what with there being a busy, thriving market and everything – sending kitchen
maids hiking miles out of the city seems far less cost efficient than buying
locally grown herbs from a merchant) but the cook merely answers that the king
wants herbs and doesn’t care how far they are. When the cook finally leads him
to a clearing in the woods, she draws a knife and tries to stab him

Yeah, that doesn’t work. When he knocks the knife aside,
she runs. She takes poison before telling Jason that Demetrea will not be
harmed, she’s in a better place and her god will provide for her – before dying.

He takes the empty phial to Pythagoras who identifies the
poison – the Phial is marked with the thyrsus, the symbol of Dionysus
(something Jason has to be told, to Hercules’s disgust). The cook was a Maenad,
who would rather die than reveal Dionysus’s secrets – they tell Jason of a
temple where the Maenads worship Dionysus, that is guarded by flesh eating
satyrs. Demetrea is probably being raised as a Maenad.

To the temple which is all kinds of shiny and impressive,
where the Maenads gather in ritual (which looks awfully staid for a Dionysian
ritual) where a nosy man is thrown to the Satyrs for dinner.

The old man is quite upset at his daughter being
kidnapped into the Dionysian cult and needs to rest. After a talk with Jason and
Jason drawing parallels to his father, Jason decides to go with Pythagoras to
rescue Demetrea. While Hercules doesn’t agree with risking their lives for a
penniless old man, he’s still dodging the irate merchant so goes with them.

They travel, filling Jason in on the Maenads, until they
have to camp for the night. While distracted, one of the satyrs throws
something into their pot of soup. Jason and Pythagoras sleep while Hercules
stands watch – and drinks all the soup himself.

Drugged and confused he starts following a white robed
woman who appears and disappears in the blink of an eye. After staggering after
her for some time, she turns and reveals a monstrous face. He falls and when he
rises again he faces several satyrs and several maenads – including the chief
maenad. He runs through the woods, barrelling past one of the satyrs, to be
pulled to safety by a woman, a Maenad recruit. She hides him and then tells the
other Maenads the satyrs killed him and she drank his blood in the name of
Dionysus – having cut her wrist and put blood in her mouth to prove it.

Hercules regroups with Pythagoras and Jason – now eager
and determined to rescue the girl, much to Jason and Pythagoras’s shock. He leads
them straight into an ambush of dagger wielding Maenads.

Meanwhile the Maenad recruit is still trying to dig her
way out of her cell when she is called into a meeting with the high priestess
who is not amused that Hercules is alive when Demetrea said she’d sacrificed
him. She defies the priestess and declares she doesn’t want to be a Maenad –
and is thrown to the satyrs, with Hercules roaring his protests and offering
himself instead. Jason, the Big Damn Hero, knocks the dagger of the Maenad
guard aside and leaps in after her. He clubs one satyr with a bone from the pit
– but they all cower away from him, refusing to attack him as he stands between
them and the woman. Jason tells the woman her father sent them to rescue her;
which surprises her since her dad is long dead. She isn’t Demetrea, she is
Medusa (a name even Jason recognises but covers well).

Medusa has been held for 10 days, but has managed to
resist enchantment by putting wax from her candle into her hears, preventing
her from hearing the rituals. When a maenad comes to… I don’t know, clean out
the satyrs? Anyway, she’s shocked to find Jason and Medusa alive – and Jason
knocks her out. They escape and rescue Pythagoras and Hercules – but Jason is
determined to find Demetrea.

They find Demetrea and she won’t return, she has been
initiated, she’s a Maenad. Jason tries to reason with her and Hercules clonks
her on the head with a bronze bowl. Jason carries her. The High Priestess is
Not Amused.

On the way back Jason quietly asks Pythagoras if Medusa
is a common name (it isn’t), while Hercules is well and truly smitten, when
they have to hurry to escape the hunting satyrs. Unfortunately, Demetrea wakes
up and runs from them – Jason chases her and is led into an ambush. But, again,
despite the High Priestess’s commands, the satyrs won’t go near Jason. Jason
decides to bluff, he tells them he slew the Minotaur, that they should fear him
like the satyrs do or he will destroy their temple.

The high priestess and several Maenads attack, but he knocks two down (showing
considerable combat skill) and manages to stab the High Priestess. With her down,
the other Maenads and satyrs turn and walk away, leaving him with Demetrea.

But Demetrea still doesn’t want to return to Atlantis,
she says there’s nothing there for her and her father is already dead to her.
While his back is turned, the High Priestess manages to get to her feet and
smack Jason with something heavy – only to be stabbed again by Medusa behind
her. The High Priestess curses Medusa before she dies.

Back in Atlantis, Jason prepares to tell Demetrea’s
father, Itheus, that Demtrea is still a maenad – but Medusa cuts in with a
comforting lie; Demetrea is in Helios, with a boy, happy and alive. Medusa
offers to care for him in Demetrea’s place.

Jason is confused and goes to see the Oracle – he failed
in his quest. She points out his path lead to rescuing a girl, albeit not the
one he expected. He asks about Medusa since he knows the legend and the Oracle
tells him he knows what’s going to happen to her, that she can’t escape her
destiny any more than he can escape his – and that they’re linked. Also, Jason
is a super-important person needed to save the city from doom and peril.
Because Jason is special (ya think?)

Well, that was marginally better than the first episode,
with a more coherent plot and some more polished acting.

While I was initially intrigued to see Hercules cast as a
fat man – it’s so rare to see fat people presented in a heroic light – that quickly
collapsed the first episode and this episode sealed the presentation Hercules
is a clown, a greedy, drunken, cowardly clown there for comic relief and
propping up just about every stereotype there is.

I liked Medusa, even if she had to be rescued, she was
still pro-active, determined, clever and capable and able to rescue the men on more
than one occasion. Also Jemima Rooper is always a plus. I also liked that
Demetrea stayed with the maenads. After all, she is (as has been drilled home
not-too-subtly), a very undervalued servant in Atlantis, with a not very happy
life or prospects for one. As opposed to a Maenad, a sisterhood, respected and
feared and likely considerably happier. Was it possible she was brainwashed?
Certainly – but also possible that she genuinely wanted to be where she was and
didn’t need rescuing against her will.